A handful of employees in the press shop staged the unofficial action in protest at what they believe are 460 redundancies planned by GM Europe.

On February 21 officials of the Unite union at the plant sent a letter to members saying they feared a “savage attack” on jobs there.

Unite also suggested in the letter that local redundancies could be part of a scheme by Eric Stevens, vice-president of manufacturing at Vauxhall’s parent company General Motors, to shed a total of 5,136 jobs across Europe to achieve the 2008 business plan.

But Vauxhall spokeswoman Jos Sharp has stressed that, regardless of what the letter claims, there have been no meetings between management and unions to discuss job cuts.